


this blood sheds softly

by ofwickedlight



Series: This Blood Sheds [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Bisexual Jaime Lannister, Blood and Injury, Canon - Book, First Aid, Gentleness, Healing, Homoeroticism, M/M, Originally Posted on Tumblr, POV Jaime Lannister, Pre-A Game of Thrones, Pre-Canon, Rare Pairings, Repression, Sensuality, Sexual Confusion, Sexual Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:48:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22740502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofwickedlight/pseuds/ofwickedlight
Summary: Dawn's kiss was never kind.Arthur could be, though. Especially when there had been a knighting, and oaths spoken softly at the gleam of a starmetal blade, and a cut that Jaime barely felt, and sealed blood to bind them.Especially when there was water, streaming down his strong, gentle hands.
Relationships: Arthur Dayne/Jaime Lannister
Series: This Blood Sheds [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1671571
Comments: 10
Kudos: 78





	this blood sheds softly

**Author's Note:**

> _It had been years since his last vigil._ And I was younger then, a boy of fifteen years. _He had worn no armor then, only a plain white tunic. The sept where he'd spent the night was not a third as large as any of the Great Sept's seven transepts. Jaime had laid his sword across the Warrior's knees, piled his armor at his feet, and knelt upon the rough stone floor before the altar. When dawn came his knees were raw and bloody. **"All knights must bleed, Jaime," Ser Arthur Dayne had said, when he saw. "Blood is the seal of our devotion."** **With Dawn he tapped him on the shoulder; the pale blade was so sharp that even that light touch cut through Jaime's tunic, so he bled anew. He never felt it.** A boy knelt; a knight rose. _
> 
> __  
> **—A Feast for Crows, Jaime I**  
> 

* * *

The crimson bloomed on white and flesh—welled, wept, but Jaime felt nothing, only the pulsing of his heart, the sting of his bitten tongue, trapped in his teeth to keep himself from beaming.

Only felt lavender eyes, watching him.

“Dawn’s kiss is never kind,” Ser Arthur said. His voice was unlike any Jaime had ever heard—velvet cradling steel, deep yet light, the strongest gentleness.

Jaime followed Arthur’s gaze, saw the red tears that streamed down his shoulder, laughed. “As I learned firsthand," he said. "Not the gentlest of women, I see.”

The softest twitch played at Arthur’s lips, and he let out a breathy little chuckle, as he always did when Jaime said his jests. Quiet in everything, even his amusement. Even quieter, now, as he silently eyed the wound Dawn gifted Jaime.

Then, “Sit,” he commanded.

Jaime did as he was bid, and sat on the bed. Arthur left the room, only to return with full hands. When Jaime saw the bandages and pail of water, he almost thanked Arthur for fetching them for him, until the Dornishman sat at Jaime’s bedside and began wetting the cloth himself.

“My thanks, Ser,” Jaime said, the thought of Arthur cleaning him sending spikes through his veins for some reason, “but I could do that myself.”

“You could,” Arthur allowed. “I saw you patch up our comrades, after our victory against the Brotherhood. You did quite well.”

Jaime was rendered silent by the compliment, as he always was whenever Arthur blessed him with one. He bit his tongue again, to stop himself from grinning like an idiot, but a little smile still fought its way through, anyway.

Arthur kept preparing. “It’s imperative for knights to maintain kinships by aiding one another with their wounds,” he said.

Kinship. Jaime's stomach tightened at the thought. “Especially when said wound was given by a fellow knight?” he offered with a smirk.

Arthur shook his head and sighed quietly at Jaime’s nonsense, in only the way he could. He dipped his cloth in the water again, wrung it out. “Your tunic,” he said.

Oh. Right. Yes. Jaime lifted his tunic over his head, exposing the wound in full. Arthur leaned over Jaime’s shoulder, inspected his wound. In the firelight, his dusky Dornish skin gleamed copper, burning, and his deepset eyes glowed violet. His long silken hair was straight as a raven’s wing, and blacker, too, framing his serious, handsome face. They had never been so close, Jaime, and Arthur. So close, Jaime could see that Arthur’s eyelashes were quite long, fluttering like little dark butterflies, and there was a small, closing hole where a ring had once pierced his long nose, and the top of his full, bow-shaped lips were scarred with the tiniest little slash, and the flickering gold light danced shadows over the taut muscles in his neck, and his breath was moist on Jaime’s skin, clouding, and warm, and smelling of tea.

Hotness flooded Jaime’s cheeks. _The hearth is too high,_ he told himself, but he looked away, all the same.

Wet coolness took him from his thoughts, gripped, stole him.

Arthur.

Washing his wound with the softest cloth.

 _Washing him_ , and the sudden fire inside Jaime was somehow a slow bloom and a bursting storm all at once.

Jaime bit the inside of his cheek, held his breath. The cloth was the faintest graze, and the water’s kisses were almost as good as Dawn’s. Jaime averted his eyes, burned his gaze into the desk beside him, away from Arthur and his cloth. Out of sight, he could easily fool himself into thinking a nursemaid was tending to him, and yet, no. He could not. He could not, because _so soft,_ that touch. Such gentleness from strong, quick hands that could kill anyone and anything in half a breath. Like flowers, now, not steel made flesh. Gentleness, all done for _him,_ as if Jaime were a frightened, wounded babe— _Jaime,_ a boy, an invalid, not the Young Lion, not a knight created by the Sword of the Morning. Within Jaime there was rage at the insult, the coddling, but it was mere breaths in the maelstrom of _other things_ —his thrashing heart, his roiling stomach, the sweat at his brow.

And that _fire._ Jaime knew it, knew it well. It burned within him at Cersei’s gaze, Cersei’s knowing smirks, Cersei’s kisses, and _Jaime didn’t understand,_ why was he—

 _He is my hero,_ Jaime told himself. _My hero, the greatest knight in history, and he chose_ me _, has faith in_ me _. I am overwhelmed._ Overwhelmed. Yes, that was it. Overwhelmed in a different manner than Cersei conjured in him, but overwhelmed, nonetheless.

A towel patted him, dried his skin, but no, that meant it was over, ending. A protest nearly fled Jaime’s lips, but he bit it back, and before he could even question that bit of insanity, Arthur saved him. “Just a few bandages,” he murmured.

Jaime watched. Arthur reached for Jaime’s arm, bronze skin blending beautifully with Jaime’s gold, and Arthur held him as gently as wind swaying through leaves, dew on a rose, moonlight on water, and unbidden, tears sprung in Jaime Lannister’s eyes. The confusion and fury burned them away as quickly as they came. _I am overwhelmed,_ he told himself, again, and again. _I am overwhelmed._

And inane. And mad.

The last wrap of the bandage was a weeping caress, a final farewell to Jaime’s foolishness. He shuddered, and he hoped Arthur didn’t notice.

Arthur pulled away, and Jaime had never felt so cold. “It will scar,” he told him.

“I know,” Jaime croaked. He’d known it the moment Dawn entered him in that soft slice, gentle, yet unyielding. Arthur’s knighting was forever marked on Jaime’s flesh, and that was not so bad of a thing. It was proof none of it was a dream. Proof that Arthur meant it. Proof that he was worthy.

Arthur raised a questioning brow at his words, and gods, his eyes were _striking._ As purple as a Targaryen’s, but _more_ , somehow. Those eyes saw everything, and they were so honest and soft and like lavender breaths from the heavens and _Jaime was overwhelmed._ He hadn’t slept in eons, had waited on his knees until dawn for Arthur to return to him. He was sleepless, that was all. He was sleepless.

Jaime shrugged. His shoulder and arm still prickled from water, and bandages, and... his fingers shook, and he resisted the urge to reach at what Arthur had done, ruin it. “It is as you said, is it not, Ser?” he asked. “Blood is the seal. Of course it will scar.”

Arthur's gaze was silent, searching, endless. Then, he gave Jaime the smallest, fondest smile, and that fire in Jaime did not die, but cooled, and burned low, and pooled in his cheeks and ears. _Bloody hero-worshipping fool._

“Indeed,” Arthur said. He stood from his chair. “You stood vigil all night. You deserve a rest.” He made his way to the door, turned, bowed. “Ser Jaime.”

Arthur had said the title before, just mere breaths ago, eons ago, said it as he stood above that boy who had knelt before Dawn, told Jaime to _rise,_ but somehow, _now,_ it summoned the deepest blooming in Jaime’s chest, and he didn’t even try to stop himself from smiling. “Ser Arthur,” he said.

The door closed with the tiniest click, and alone, in the sept chamber, with no touch or overwhelm to cloud his thoughts, Jaime decided that his wound could not become a scar fast enough.


End file.
